The Lost Diadem of Tenochtitlan
by erm31323
Summary: In an Aztec AU, Bill Weasley is a Curse Breaker sent to retrieve a fabled, lost diadem. An accidental touch of the magical object will have unintended consequences for both himself and an ancient people.


**A/N - Written for the Balloons Stall at the Hogwarts Fair on HPFC. I was given the plot bunny - In an Aztec AU, a character stumbles upon a magic diadem, resulting in the outbreak of a war. The basic history here about the Aztecs is true, the Pyramid, where it is, names of the rulers, defeat by Cortes etc. But everything about the diadem and the cache of treasure I made up, along with the wizard bit of course. :) Also this is AU in that Bill does not work for Gringotts. Enjoy! **

**The Lost Diadem of Tenochtitlan**

Bill Weasley stood in the shadows. He wore a hooded cloak, was disillusioned and among Muggles, but it never hurt to be careful. He listened to the Muggle tour guide give the same speech he'd heard three times already. This was the last tour of the day however and soon Bill would be free to carry out the purpose of his visit.

Bill was a Curse Breaker, the best in the business some said. His expertise and precision had given him leeway to pick and choose the jobs he wanted, which for him usually meant the most challenging and the most dangerous. This one was no exception.

He was in the Aztec Pyramid of the Sun in Teotihuacán. The pyramid was built upon a large cave and tunnel and though Muggles had examined it in depth, no significant treasure was ever found. Of course, no one had the information that Bill's employer did, or so he said. Hidden rooms and passages, warded into invisibility by wizards that had been part of the nobility of the Aztecs, even Moctezuma the First and many of his descendants. It was rumored that the main reason that Cortes had been able to defeat Moctezuma the Second was because he was a Squib.

Personally, Bill really didn't care about the history or whether it was true. And he was quite sure that the smallpox epidemic that had swept through the population had more to do with the Aztecs defeat than anything. Regardless, he was merely interested in finding what his employer requested and finding it quickly. There was a certain French blonde that he was anxious to get back to.

The last of the Muggle tourists finally filed out and Bill waited another thirty minutes until the guides and other employees had left for the day. There was Muggle security of course, but a few well-placed Confundus and Notice-Me-Not Charms were all Bill needed to distract them. He stole through the shadows, still disillusioned, to a chain that was strung across the steps that led below ground.

Amazed that Muggles simply abided by the 'No Admittance' sign that was attached to the chain, he climbed over it and began making his way down the stone steps. Once had reached the first landing and turned the corner, he lit his wand and continued his descent. Cancelling the disillusionment charm once he had reached the bottom, he began to move through the tunnel to the bigger cave that lay beyond it.

Bill had been told that there were smaller passageways that branched off the main cave, leading to smaller chambers that had been used for a variety of things. Many had caved in and these were the ones the Muggles knew about. Others had been concealed with magic. Over the years a few of these had been found and explored, any treasure the hidden rooms contained removed, but amounting to little.

There was a legend that the greatest treasure cache of the Aztecs had not yet been found, that everything Cortes and his army had plundered was nothing compared to what remained under the Pyramid of the Sun. If Moctezuma the Second had indeed been a Squib, then some of the knowledge of how to get into the room may have been lost. The rest of the nobility that knew may very well have chosen not to attempt to remove any of the treasure lest it be lost to Cortes and his men. And eventually, the wards and enchantments that were cast on the hidden room were so intricate and interwoven that wizardkind had given up trying to break them and ultimately the treasure was forgotten about by most and assumed not to exist by the rest.

A few, however, had not forgotten. The information Bill was given by his employer had been passed down from generation to generation and then obtained by his family at some point. Bill chose not to ask how. There were those before him that had tried to find the treasure, but none of them had been successful and the knowledge was nearly lost. For many years, no one had even attempted it. In fact, had his employer not been looking for some other family heirloom in his vast vault and stumbled upon the journal of a long-dead ancestor, Bill would likely not be here now.

He finally reached the main cavern and stopped in the middle, strengthening the light from his wand and shining it along the walls. He could see the evidence of a few of the caved in passages and immediately ignored them. Finding a seemingly blank expanse of wall, he stepped closer to it. He extinguished his wand, plunging him into darkness. Taking a deep breath, he let it out and closed his eyes.

Settling into a meditative state, he let the darkness of the cave settle around him. Slowly, he reached out with a hand and began to slowly run it across the wall of the cave. He stopped once and concentrated, then shook his head, knowing that the magic pulsing in the wall wasn't nearly strong enough to be what he wanted. It was likely one of the already explored smaller rooms. He continued down the blank expanse of wall and felt nothing else. Frowning, he went back the way he had come, but still only encountered the one area.

Stepping back, he relit his wand and examined the cave once more. Brow furrowed, he carefully illuminated every section the walls as he turned in a circle. No other spot seemed likely, given the amount of passages that had caved in. He stopped between two such passages and wondered. Putting out his wand once more he concentrated and then began to chuckle. Of course. Hide it in plain sight. Stepping forward, he pressed a hand to the wall and was immediately thrown backwards. Grinning, he jumped up and pulled a shrunken torch from the rucksack on his back.

Once the torch was lit and stuck to the wall, he walked back to the steps and set an alarm at the bottom in case any of the security decided to check the cave. Bill didn't think he needed to worry about the current shift, but he had no idea how long he would be down here and didn't want to risk being surprised the next morning by the day shift coming in. He then began the long, tedious process of identifying the wards and trying to dismantle them.

He had no idea how much time was passing given he was underground. The sound from the pyramid tours didn't carry this far and although he had stopped to eat and rest occasionally, he didn't bother trying to check the time. It didn't really matter anyway, he wouldn't stop until he had either broken through or run out of things to try. Just as he thought this, Bill felt something give. He took a step back and held his breath as an archway shimmered into existence.

Bill crowed in triumph as he picked up his rucksack and shoved everything inside, leaving no evidence of his having been there. He grabbed the torch from the wall and after casting a few more diagnostics on the now visible passageway, he stepped inside. He cautiously made his way forward, stopping every so often to rescan the corridor. Just because he'd broken the wards on the entrance didn't mean there wouldn't be more along the way.

Surprisingly enough, he reached the end of the passage without encountering anything else but a solid wooden door. There were a few more protections here, but they took Bill little effort to dismantle. The door was almost the bigger obstacle, as hundreds of years of disuse had made it very difficult to move. He didn't dare simply blast it away as he had no doubt that there would be counterspells in place if the magic sensed someone was trying to break in.

Finally, the door gave way enough that he could sneak through. Almost immediately upon entering, the door slammed shut. Bill whirled and just saw the door start to disappear as his torch blew out in the breeze created. Sighing, he drew his wand and relit the torch, not overly shocked. This was typical protection magic and he should have anticipated it. No matter, he would simply mark the wall where the door had been and break the wards again once he found what he was looking for.

Pulling his wand, Bill relit the torch in his hand and scored the wall with a large 'X'. He turned around to face the center of the room which he really hadn't gotten much of a look at before. Holding the torch a bit higher above his head, his jaw dropped open as he took in the contents of the room.

"Bloody hell," he whispered. Even with all the information he seemed to have, Bill didn't think that his employer had been expecting this.

Upon further inspection, the room was not all that large. However, every inch of it was covered with something of value. Even the seemingly innocuous carvings made only of wood would fetch a great price from a collector. He took a few of the smaller, more interesting pieces and put them in his rucksack. His employer had made it clear that Bill could reward himself with something, as long as Bill brought back the one thing that the other man wanted. While there was gold and jewels galore, Bill chose two small carved wooden figurines for himself instead. He would be paid handsomely for this job and he would rather have something meaningful than extra gold in his vault.

There were narrow paths between the piles throughout the room and Bill made his way carefully through them, searching for the one thing his employer wanted, the lost Diadem of Tenochtitlan. It was said to contain the most precious of gems, but it also apparently had some kind of magical properties. His employer hadn't explained what they were and Bill really didn't care. As long as he had the special magic dampening bag in which to transport the diadem, he had no desire to discover its secrets.

He came around the side of a large statue and in front of him stood a small dais. Hovering over the top of it was a jeweled diadem, matching the description exactly. Bill smiled and stepped closer.

He could feel the magic emanating from the diadem and knew that there were further protections around it. Attaching the torch to the wall beside him, he went to work dismantling the charms and curses around the diadem.

By the time he finished, he was sweating with the effort. These had been near as difficult as the ones that had been on the entrance to the chamber itself. Wondering for the first time exactly why the diadem was protected so heavily, Bill pulled the special bag from his rucksack. Covering his hand with it, he reached for the diadem, not noticing the small rip in the seam near his thumb. As his thumb touched the crown there was a flash of light and then all went dark.

**XxXxXxXxXxX**

When Bill came to, he was lying on the floor of the chamber. Groaning, he rubbed his forehead to try and stem the pounding headache he now had. The torch had gone out once again, so he lit his wand, even that small pinpoint of light making him wince. He took a few deep breaths and managed to sit up, rummaging in his rucksack for the pain potion he always carried with him.

His hand closed round the vial and he unstoppered it and drained it quickly. He waited a few minutes until most of the pain had subsided and then held his wand aloft. The diadem was still hovering over the table in its original position and there were once again magical protections around it. Swearing under his breath, Bill realized that touching it with his bare skin must have initiated some kind of countercharm that reversed all of the work he had done.

Well, there was nothing for it. He would just have to break the spells again. The first thing he did was repair the small tear in the dampening bag, grumbling under his breath as he did so. He was too much of a professional to have made such a stupid mistake. He then stood up and turned to the wall, intending to relight the torch, but it was gone. Frowning, Bill looked around the floor for it, but the torch was nowhere to be found which made no sense. Magical backlash might have knocked it from the wall, but it wouldn't have disintegrated it all together.

As he searched for the torch, Bill realized something else. There seemed to be fewer items in the room than there had been when he first entered. He trained his light around the room. The 'X' that he had left on the wall was gone too. In its place stood the same wooden door he had entered through originally.

His heartbeat quickened but Bill forced himself to calm and think logically. It was entirely possible that the backlash from the diadem had reset all the magic in the room, removing any traces of anything he had done. That would explain why the 'X' was gone and the door once again visible. He had enlarged the torch when he first took it out of his rucksack and although that had been back in the main chamber, he supposed that it could have shrunk once again. But that still didn't explain why the room wasn't as full as before. In fact the large statue that he had passed just before he found the diadem was gone as well.

His mind started racing with possibilities, each of them less likely than the last. Shaking his head as if to clear it, Bill turned back to the diadem and began working over it again. Surprisingly, there didn't seem to be as many protections on it as there had been previously and he dismantled the charms quickly. This also gave him pause, but he shoved that to the back of his mind and picked up the dampening bag once more. Making sure that his entire hand was covered this time, he picked up the diadem and then inverted the bag. Safely tied shut, he put the diadem into his rucksack and headed for the door. The sooner he was out of this place, the better. And if his employer wanted him to return to retrieve something else, Bill was quite sure that he would have to decline.

He reached the door and it opened quite easily, adding to his anxiety. Taking a breath, he stepped back into the tunnel and walked toward the main chamber. When he reached the end, there was only solid rock in front of him. Stopping short he looked back the way he had come. The door was still visible and a wave of his wand indicated that there was no magic present behind him. In front of him was an entirely different matter.

Bill leaned against the wall and closed his eyes. Nothing about this situation made sense. If the backlash had cancelled all the magic he had done, why did it not reinstate the initial magic that had been on the door into the chamber? And why did it not return _all_ the spells that had been on the diadem? Not liking where his mind was heading, Bill turned his attention back to the wall of rock in front of him.

As he expected, there were fewer wards here than had been originally. While he supposed that it could be because he was on the inside, he highly doubted it. It was possible that the wards had been set to have the entry reseal itself once a person was inside, but then why hadn't it done that when Bill entered? The diadem sat like a lead weight in his rucksack. A weight he was determined to ignore.

Dismantling the wards once again, he stepped out into the main cavern and stared. Gone were the piles of rubble that had previously indicated caved-in passageways. Various tunnels led off the main room and lit torches marked each one. The steps leading up to the pyramid were cruder and less uniform than the ones he had come down however many hours before. Something told him he was no longer in the same place he had been before.

He soundlessly made his way up the steps, wand drawn. When he reached the final landing, he pressed his back against the wall and slowly leaned around the corner. Bill could see that someone was standing to the side of the archway that led to the main floor of the pyramid. From what Bill could see of him, he looked to be wearing some type of cloak and his feet were bare. He held a spear at his side and Bill could see feathers, possibly part of some type of headdress.

Bill moved back so he was once again hidden around the corner. It was possible that he had found himself in the midst of some type of costume presentation; maybe some reenactment of an Aztec ritual of some sort. He quickly disillusioned himself and climbed the rest of the steps silently. Stopping a few steps down from the back of the guard, Bill levitated a small stone and then flung it through the archway so that it fell with a clatter on the other side of the main room of the pyramid. His distraction worked and the guard moved to inspect the noise. Bill quickly stole across the pyramid and stepped outside.

To say he was shocked would have been an understatement. He found himself not in the middle of tourists and stalls filled with souvenirs, but amongst men and women that were similarly clad to the guard in the pyramid, in traditional Aztec garb. Bill doubted that this many people would be involved, even in some kind of reenactment.

Shifting the rucksack on his shoulder, Bill finally allowed the thought that he had been pushing away to surface. Touching the diadem had brought him back in time.

His first thought was finding a place to hide until he could figure out just what he was going to do. Moving deftly through the people approaching the temple, he settled on a small grove of trees a few yards away. Stepping inside, he sat at the base of a large tree; he kept his hood up and kept himself disillusioned. Although he was well-hidden where he was, he wasn't taking any chances. The question now was, could he get back to his own time and if so, how?

He leaned back against the tree's trunk and closed his eyes. He knew a fair bit about time-turners, but you could only go back in time a few hours. And you couldn't go forward in time with a time-turner; you simply had to relive the minutes or hours you had gone back. He had been sent back _five hundred_ _years_. A wave of panic washed over him before he shoved it down. Panicking would get him nowhere.

He hadn't noticed anything untoward until he touched the diadem. However unlikely it seemed, it was fairly obvious that doing so had somehow brought him back in time. How or why, he had no idea. The mental exhaustion of the last day washed over Bill and soon his eyelids drooped. He clutched his rucksack tightly to him as he fell asleep.

**XxXxXxXxXxX**

When he awoke, the sun was much lower in the sky and he could hear shouts coming from behind him. Standing, he peered out from behind the tree and saw a large crowd of people standing in front of the pyramid. They looked to be mostly men, although there were a few women at the edges of the crowd looking on. Nearly all the men looked to have some kind of weapon as well. Some carried spears, but most had what looked to be some kind of sword made of wood and they were all wearing various bits of armor.

Bill stole closer to get a better look and hid behind a large boulder. One man stood higher on the steps of the temple. A young woman stood beside him, clearly from the nobility if the embroidery on her cloak was any indication. She was also draped with jewels and feathers, so she must have been someone quite important.

Bill couldn't understand anything of what was being said, although he had no problem figuring out that the crowd was upset about something having to do with the young woman. There were translating spells that Bill could cast, but he would have to be much closer to the crowd in order to do so. He wasn't sure that he wanted to do that. Even disillusioned someone could see him, if they were looking hard enough. And if what he had been told was true and there were wizards amongst the people here, Bill wasn't sure that he wanted to take that risk.

The crowd grew louder and more agitated the longer the man spoke. Soon they began some kind of chant. It was nearing dusk now and finally Bill's curiosity got the best of him. He stole forward as close to the edge of the crowd as he dared and cast the translation spell.

The war chant immediately filled his ears. In fact it was the only thing he could hear. The man on the temple had stopped speaking for the moment. Finally, he called out to the warriors around him and they began to settle. As he spoke, Bill's mouth dropped open.

They had found that the diadem had been stolen and blamed it on their neighbors, the Tlaxcala. This apparently did not surprise anyone. The diadem was full of ancient magic and only the princess could wear it. Bill did not understand exactly what the man, who Bill now assumed was a priest, was saying, but there was quite a bit about gods and sacrifice and war and the return of some god or another. Whatever it all meant, the rest of the people certainly understood because the chant started up again.

Bill slowly backed away from the crowd toward his hiding place. He watched as the priest continued until the crowd had been whipped into a frenzy. And then two men ran forward and raised their spears aloft. The rest of the crowd roared and they all began to run behind the two in the front, towards, Bill assumed, their enemies. It appeared he had just started a war. The thought caused him to lose his breath for a moment.

The problem of how he was going to get home still remained, however. While he was quite sure it was the diadem that had brought him here, Bill had no idea what touching it again would do. He could be flung further back in time or sent forward, but not far enough. It was the main reason that messing with time was frowned upon and time-turners so strictly controlled. Bill could have just changed history.

He sat down shakily behind the boulder and scrubbed a hand down his face. He pulled the bag with the diadem in it from his rucksack and opened it up. He ran a few revealing spells over it, but the readings were nothing he recognized. He mentally ran over the spells that had protected it, but besides being a bit simple and old, none of them gave him any ideas. He closed the bag again and decided that at the very least, he would put the diadem back. Then perhaps he would try and get back to England somehow. Hogwarts was already built by this time; perhaps someone there would be able to help him.

Bill rose and making sure be was still disillusioned and his hood was up around his face, walked quickly back to the pyramid. The priest and the princess were gone and there didn't appear to be anyone guarding the door. Bill stole back inside and searched the main floor. Seeing no one he made his way back down the stairs to the main chamber once more.

Here there were two guards standing in front of what Bill knew was the entrance to the passageway. Obviously they did not want any of their other treasures stolen out from under their noses. Stepping back into an alcove near the stairs, Bill decided to wait. When nearly an hour passed and no one else came in or out, he cast two quick stunners at the guards. Both crumpled instantly. He quickly bound them and then proceeded to dismantle the wards around the archway once again.

When he had finished he moved quickly to the side, lest there be more guards inside, but all was quiet. He carefully stepped into the tunnel and made his way to the door, making quick work of the wards there and then stepped back inside the room. It appeared empty as well, so Bill cancelled his disillusionment and then walked toward the dais and fished the diadem from his rucksack. He would be able to replace a couple of the simpler wards, but not all of them. Most of them were too ancient for him to know how to recreate. It was no matter, Bill figured whoever had cast them in the first place would quickly replace them.

Careful not to touch the diadem, he held it with the bag above the dais and cast the levitation charm. Once finished he raised his wand again to cast the first ward when he felt something being shoved into the side of his neck. He froze and his eyes shot to the side. The priest held a wand to Bill's neck. Grasping Bill's arm, the priest spun him around and looked at him in confusion when Bill's hood fell back. He clearly wasn't expecting a pale, redhead to be the one with the diadem. The moment of hesitation was all Bill needed as he wrenched his arm from the priest and held up his own wand. The priest's eyes widened at that and then he smiled.

The dueled and while Bill was certainly no slouch, the priest knew spells Bill had never heard of and had no way to counter. It was a good thing he was agile and was able to duck or roll away from most of them. He had been cut twice, the one on his arm bleeding more heavily than he would like and Bill was starting to tire. He had been backed up near the dais where the diadem still hovered and Bill knew he was trapped. Given the Aztec's penchant for human sacrifice, he had no illusions as to what would happen if he allowed himself to be caught. Glancing at the diadem he threw a stunner toward the priest and then reached out and grasped the diadem, praying that it would take him home. There was a bright flash and then black once again.

**XxXxXxXxXxX**

When he woke up, Bill's headache was back. He sat up quickly and lit his wand, but saw no evidence of the priest in the chamber with him. He looked around the room and it looked much like it had when he had first entered back in his own time. He smiled when he saw the torch that he had stuck to the wall, laying on the ground. His arm was still bleeding and he healed it and the smaller cut on his leg before finding another pain potion in his rucksack. Then he stared at the diadem that sat innocently on the floor next to him.

Bill had never been one to worry about what his clients were doing with the artifacts that he recovered for them. Most put them in private collections or donated them to museums, he knew. He doubted that many had any kind of nefarious purpose in mind. But, he wasn't so sure about his current employer. If this diadem truly was a time travel device and it could be controlled somehow, the results could be devastating, regardless of the user's purpose. The amount of gold he had been promised for this job made him believe that the motives were not pure ones. He stared at the diadem for a few more moments before he picked it up with the bag again.

He set it to hover over the dais and then cast every single ward and protection spell he could think of, some of his own design, layering and twisting them together. He put back the figurines he had taken and with one last look, left the room. He rewarded the door as he had the diadem and then the archway. Bill wasn't so arrogant as to think that no one would be able to break through his wards, but it would be extremely difficult and Bill knew of only one or two other curse breakers that could even attempt it. He had thought about adding a blood ward to prevent any kind of success, but that could be tracked and Bill did not want word to get back to his employer. Bill gathered his rucksack and quietly made his way to the top of the stairs.

The chain with the 'No Admittance' sign was there. He was fairly certain he had come back to his own time, given the torch in the chamber, but couldn't be sure until he found a newspaper. It was possible he had come back further in the future. Looking at where the Muggle security was, Bill disillusioned himself once more and then crept quietly out of the pyramid.

A quick perusal of the newsstand near his hotel showed him that he had only come back one day ahead of where he had left and considering the amount of time it had taken him to break the wards; it was highly possible that he had lost no time at all. Sighing in relief, Bill let himself into his room, took a quick shower and then collapsed into his bed for a full twenty-four hours.

**XxXxXxXxXxX**

"I'm sorry Mr. Malfoy," Bill said to the aristocratic blonde in front of him. "There wasn't anything there that I could find. There was evidence of lesser magic and that was the smaller chambers that have already been looted. I spent two days down there and I found nothing else." The clench of Lucius Malfoy's jaw was the only indication that he was less than pleased.

"And you are positive that you searched the entire pyramid thoroughly?" Malfoy asked.

"Yes sir," Bill said. "Multiple times." He was surprised that he felt no remorse at lying to the man.

"Perhaps we were wrong about the location," Lucius mused. "It would make more sense for the diadem to actually be kept in Tenochtitlan instead of Teotihuacán. Perhaps it is actually in Templo Mayor."

"Perhaps," Bill agreed. Lucius steepled his fingers under his chin and looked off across the room for a moment before he returned his attention to the young man in front of him.

"Very well, I will have half the fee we agreed upon transferred to your vault since you were unsuccessful," Malfoy said. Bill simply nodded. It was more than he had expected actually. "And I shall be in touch once I do a bit more research."

"About that," Bill said. "I've decided that it's time for a career change." Lucius looked up at him, raising an eyebrow in question. "Maybe with Gringotts. I hear they always need curse breakers and they have a branch in France." Malfoy smirked.

"Ah, well, have your fun then and let me know when you tire of her and decide to get back in the game," Lucius said with a dismissive gesture.

"I'll be sure to do that Mr. Malfoy," Bill said and left the man's study, escorted to the door by a house elf. "I'll be sure to do that." Grinning, Bill stepped outside the gates and Disapparated.


End file.
